On Taking a Cab in Manhattan

I had a medical appointment Friday in a part of Manhattan that you can’t really get to easily by subway. Someday there will be a 2nd Avenue line, but until then? You take a cab.

I don’t take cabs all that often, so even after seven years in New York, it still almost always feels like an original experience: You get into a car with someone you do not know, you tell him where to take you, and then: You are a passenger.

There are so many ways you can spend that time: look out the window, look at your phone, text people, read emails, make a call, close your eyes, talk to the cabbie.

Sometimes I have to work up a little nerve, but I usually talk to the cabbie, see how that goes. Sometimes it goes nowhere.

On Friday, the cabbie was listening to talk radio: some back-and-forth about Trump.

“So, what’s gonna happen with this campaign?” I said.

No response. I thought he hadn’t heard me but then realized he was formulating his answer.

“I don’t know, I haven’t voted since Jimmy Carter–that was the end for me.”

It was such a good answer.

“Jimmy Carter!” I responded, crouching forward. “Wow, man, that is commitment right there. I gave up for a while after Bill Clinton, all that impeachment bullshit. I hardly remember the Bush years, to be honest, I really don’t–”

He shot me a glance.

“–But then, Obama came along,” I added, “and I was smitten.”

He nodded, but not in agreement: “They’re all the same, always will be; it’s a militarized economy, the U.S.” He went on to cite statistics from every war America has been involved in since WWII–Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, other military operations; he knew what he was talking about. “Thousands and thousands of people slaughtered,” he continued, his voice rising. “Millions of dollars spent–millions! For what? For what..? For money. Money.”

I sat back. “Yeah,” I murmured.

I didn’t mention this yet, but the cabbie was very dark-skinned, around 65, and had a pretty heavy accent–beautiful, French somehow; I couldn’t place it. “Where are you from originally?”

So: I thought to myself, he moved here in 1976, voted for Carter, saw how that went, then he gave up. Oh, America.

Traffic was terrible, and I was already late for my appointment. I called the office and told them I was five minutes away–ever the optimist. We were close, but it was going to take way more than five minutes; cars weren’t even moving anymore; it’d be faster to walk the last couple blocks. The cabbie agreed: “…New York…” he said sort of under his breath but chuckling at the same time. He had a sense of humor about all of this.

“Listen, I’ll get out here, you can just pull over.”

He did so. I paid the fare, tipped him, told him my name, and he told me his. We shook hands through the window between driver and passenger.